Mexico City prosecutors: 2 heads dumped near historic center

General view of the Zocalo square in Mexico City during the ceremony for the Bicentenary of the country's Independence, on September 15, 2010. AFP PHOTO/Luis Acosta

General view of the Zocalo square in Mexico City during the ceremony for the Bicentenary of the country's Independence, on September 15, 2010. AFP PHOTO/Luis Acosta

Photo: LUIS ACOSTA, Getty Images

Photo: LUIS ACOSTA, Getty Images

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General view of the Zocalo square in Mexico City during the ceremony for the Bicentenary of the country's Independence, on September 15, 2010. AFP PHOTO/Luis Acosta

General view of the Zocalo square in Mexico City during the ceremony for the Bicentenary of the country's Independence, on September 15, 2010. AFP PHOTO/Luis Acosta

Photo: LUIS ACOSTA, Getty Images

Mexico City prosecutors: 2 heads dumped near historic center

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Two severed heads were dumped on a street corner near Mexico City's historic colonial core early Wednesday, a rare instance in the capital of the kind of grisly killings and public displays of murder victims more commonly seen in other parts of the country.

A statement from the city prosecutor's office reported that a man left the heads in two black bags in the morning at an intersection about eight blocks from the city's Zocalo, or main square, and about four from the notoriously gritty neighborhood of Tepito.

Prosecutors said so far they do not have any missing person reports that could correspond to the severed heads and are working to determine when the victims died and whether they may have come from elsewhere. There was no immediate word of any arrest.

In areas of Mexico that are drug cartel strongholds, gangs have often murdered and mutilated victims and then left the remains in public as a warning to foes or people who defy them. Such displays have been rare in the capital, however, which has often been said to be a relative oasis from the worst of the country's cartel violence.

But those perceptions have been changing recently as drug gang influence increasingly appears to be felt in Mexico City. In July, road blockades and a sustained gunbattle between gang members and about 1,300 heavily armed marines and police left eight dead in Tlahuac, a poor neighborhood on the city's southern outskirts.